PPP and the MQM objected that the population growth in Sindh has been deliberately shown less than Punjab
LAHORE: Opposition parties are raising a hue and cry over the preliminary report of the 2017 census, conducted after 19 years following the last census. Pakistan is the sixth-most populous country in the world, astonishingly managing its resources with unidentified population growth rate due to which no adequate measures have been adopted to control the population. Now when this much-awaited census has been done, political parties are making it controversial.
The PPP and the MQM objected that the population growth in Sindh has been deliberately shown less than Punjab so that Sindh does not get its due share in the NFC award and seat allocation could also be cut down for the province.
The country’s chief statistician has made it clear that the discrepancies in Lahore’s and Karachi’s population figures is only because all districts of Lahore have been declared urban, while two districts of Karachi are still classified as rural. Regardless of the clarification that there is no discrepancies in the figures of the statistics division and of the army, few political groupings are politicising the census. As political consensus on key issues is a way forward to development and progress, the census exercise should not be politicised controversially.
Nazia Jabeen
Published in The Express Tribune, September 8th, 2017.
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